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August 31, 2005
Katrina fallout
We're now seeing the Katrina fallout, not just the tremendous loss in lives and property, but the "Hey, I'm going to use this disaster to promote the righteousness of my own views!" fallout.
For the record, Katrina is not the worst hurricane ever to hit the US, nor are the last two years the worst hurricane years on record. So go put your global warming rhetoric back in your pocket.
This is also not God's revenge for Mardi Gras sinfulness.
And it's not Allah's revenge for U.S. policies in the mid-east either.
And it's not a secret NASA weather experiment gone awry either. (I only mention that here because it's as unfounded as the others.)
If it's a sign of anything, then maybe, just maybe, it's a sign that it's not such a good idea to build a city on semi-tropical coast below sea level! I don't know for sure, but I was just thinking...
So for now, get out your checkbooks and do what you can to help these folks out. And start buying building-supply stocks.
Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 29, 2005
Live Strong counterfeiters confess
In an earlier post, I called out the despicable practice of selling counterfeit LIVESTRONG bracelets, a product meant to raise money for Armstrong's cancer charity that in some cases was just lining the pockets of some counterfeiters. Those particular ones were in China, but some local ones have now found genuine trouble with the law.
Six people have pleaded guilty in New York to charges relating to the sale of thousands of phony LiveStrong wristbands.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says the six also have turned over almost 112-thousand dollars to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which markets the real LiveStrong bands. Authorities say undercover investigators bought a thousand of the bogus wristbands from a Manhattan storefront in March. They say they found 81-thousand more there and at a home in Queens.
The authentic wristbands sell for a dollar each and intended to fund Armstrong's Austin-based foundation, which provides services to cancer patients.
The Austin bicycling great started the group after he defeated cancer and won a record seven Tour de France titles. About 55 million genuine LiveStrong wristbands have been sold since the campaign began in the spring of 2004.
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
I am officially unique... and evil!
After grinding through the legal mill for about four and half years, my first two patents were awarded today. Hence, I am officially unique... twice. And for those of you anti-IP folks out there, I'm officially EVIL!!
(Note: my company is historically against software patents and only started getting them after being sued on an infringement of such. Since then, they have a history of only using these patents defensively, cross-licensing to gain access to other patents. So, I'm not really that evil.)
My only real regret is that it didn't happen two weeks ago. That's something my father would have liked.
Technology by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
August 23, 2005
Funeral is over
We buried my father this morning. I'd like to go on about how nice the service was and how great it was that so many friends and family traveled great distances just to be there for us or how nice the luncheon was afterwards, but... I'm just too tired right now. Partly it's the emotional drain, and part of it is just standing up more than usual, but a lot of it is doing some of that in 100+ heat.
Tomorrow it'll be back to work and routine.
Family by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
My watch
Those of you who've been following the strange relationship between me and my various watches should know that about fifteen minutes after posting last night's entry, my watch stopped.
You know, I'm not a big believer in the supernatural meanings of common day occurances, and I'm not attributing one to this. However, the fact that my watches stop working at times that I should really be pausing for relaxation or reflection is, well, interesting.
Family by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
My father died today
After battling cancer for over two years, my father died this afternoon. In his weakened state, the pneumonia returned, and he died peacefully in his sleep.
Most of you reading this won't have really known my father, so I thought I'd pass on a few brushstrokes of his character.
He was an electrical engineer. It was not merely his job. It was his hobby. It was his passion. Mom never feared he would stray, because she new engineering was Dad's mistriss. Specifically, he worked on microwave communications. That's not one frozen pizza talking to another. It's the microwave band of the radio spectrum, and it's a very weird part of the spectrum. I've heard other skilled EE's talk about it and just shudder. "Black magic", they called it, but Dad thrived on it.
He worked on everything from top secret defense programs to long distance telephone networks, from cell and sattelite phones to the communications systems for the Apollo moon missions. His work helped save pilots' lives and made yours and mine more convenient. In that, he was a patriot, always concious of helping to give America an edge, and while he often questioned the national wisdom and direction, he always felt that this was the greatest nation on Earth.
He was also the cheapest man I've ever known. The polite thing to say is "frugal", but he didn't mince words over it. He freely admitted to being cheap. "A penny saved is better than a penny earned," he would say, "because it's tax free!" And this never changed, even with financial success. On my last visit to see him, on the way back from a financial meeting that laid out how well he has prepared for my mother's future, he was advising her on just where that day's cheapest gas station was. "Hey, 2 cents a gallon adds up."
And he did meet with a fair degree of financial success. He always strived to understand the larger economic events and invested aggressively for decades. He wasn't always on target, but after his retirement, he was able to really focus on it. At that point, he started beating the S&P 500 index by about 15% each year. Very few on Wall Street can say the same. One of his most prescient predictions came about a year ago as the price of oil approached the stratospheric level of $35 a barrel. I opined that it couldn't last long at that level. He just smiled and said, "We'll see $60 before we see $20 again." For those not following such things, I point out that oil closed at $66.27 today.
But he was not a money-loving greedy bastard. He gave much to charity, and while he would sometimes refer to the less fortunate with scorn, he was always kind to the individual. While very conservative in fiscal matters, he was remarkably liberal on many social issues, such as drug legalization, abortion rights, and to some degree, even gay marraige -- very rare for someone of his generation. He was also strongly opposed to various forms of prejudice, whether on racial, ethnic, or gender lines. This was not born out of any great high minded ideals, just that it struck him as incredibly stupid and inefficient.
And he was a great father. He was always there, and he loved my mother for over forty years. He taught me about responsibility, promises, self-reliance, and all the things a man is supposed to learn from his father but often doesn't.
So I think back across my childhood, and all the memories with him. There were many long cross-country drives on wonderful camping vacations. And amongst the beauty of the American wilderness, the ruggedness of the Rockies, the Tetons, the stillness of Crater Lake. he would point it out, just there, to the left of that peak. "Hey kids, there's another microwave tower."
Dates aren't set yet, but there will be a funeral service in Phoenix followed by a burial service in Austin.
Family by Dan | Permalink | Comments (6)
August 12, 2005
Friday 5: Cool Colonies
Today’s question comes from me:
You've been sent out to scout for potential colony worlds. It turns out taht Earth-like bodies (whether full planets or moons) are surprisingly common, or at least easy to access given the Super-Ion Warpification Doodad. Plus, terraforming has become remarkably easy given the real success of our own Project Genesis. So, most or all of the practical issues of selecting a world (e.g. nitrogen oxygen atmosphere, water, etc.) have been rendered moot. All that's left is aesthetics. What five things are you looking for in your new colony worlds?
You know, sometimes I see some of my own questions come back to me months later, and I can only ask myself one question: what was I smoking when I thought of that one? Hmmm, the magic eight ball is off satisfying the munchies, so no answer there. Meanwhile, back to the whole planet thingy. While I certainly wouldn’t expect to find all of these in one world, here are few things that would definitely get my attention.
- Planetary rings: Maybe it’ll be a moon orbiting a Saturn-like gas giant, but it would be even better, I think, to find a terrestrial planet with its own ring system. Physics has probably stacked the deck against me here, but I can always dream.
- A nebula: I’d like to find something near a big nebula. It would dominate the night sky, well lit by nearby star formation and add an awesome backdrop to the changing of the seasons.
- Galactic view: If the nebula’s not enough, how about something a few thousand light years above the galactic plane? Summer nights filled with the majesty of Milky Way galaxy spread out before you and the winters looking at the dimmer Magellanic Clouds.
- Beaches: Preferably, I’d like a wraparound equatorial ocean, cluttered with an archipelago that spanned the globe, from northern to southern tropic lines. Fifty thousand Fiji’s.
- Warm climate with plenty of ozone: To go along with all of those beaches, I’d want a pleasantly warm climate and a super dense ozone layer to block the UV. Oh, and did I mention the millions of naked beach babes?
Other Friday Fivers can be found picking out their galatic getaways here.
Meme by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 11, 2005
Generic Update 8.11
This is just a generic update on various happenings in my life.
My father remains with one foot in the grave, though a phone call today made it clear that the remaining foot was slipping. No one knows when it’s going to happen, but it will be soon. I’m guessing one to two weeks.
Ironically, I’m actually scheduled to go visit them in another week or so. I have a business trip out to the California office, and I planned to stop off in Phoenix both coming and going. We’ll see what happens.
Work is… well, work. There are plenty of fires to deal with, and this time, I’m actually on one that’s at least somewhat my own fault. I didn’t do anything really wrong, but every now and then a project just hits a brick wall with no way forward and no way to have really seen it was going to happen. I guess it was just my turn. We’re in the process of finding the alternate path to achieve the same overall goals, and it’s looking good.
The twins continue to do pretty well, picking up more words at a decent clip. They’re still behind, but speech delay is common in twins since they learn to communicate with each other very well without words, or perhaps, with their own words. Tommy, in particular, is doing quite well. You may recall that he was hospitalized just before Christmas for low weight, vomiting, and dehydration. He has now doubled his hospital weight and now weighs more than Catherine.
Some of you know that our eldest son, Sam, has had extreme speech delay. The jury is still out on whether or not he’s technically autistic or just “within the autism spectrum”. The neurologist has just ordered up a new battery of tests. In the meantime, we got a new nanny, and Sam is responding very well to her. He’s also started with a few more words. In the spring, all he had was “noooooo” and “NO DON’T!” along with an approximation of “dada”. (Hmmm, put in that context, I must sound like a terrible father. “No, dada, don’t!” “Well, your honor, what happened was…”) But lately, he’s started counting and even making an approximation of “E-I-E-I-O” in the Old McDonald song. The counting gets a pretty rough after “four”, but the “ten” is fairly clear and at the right place in the sequence, so I can only assume that the other mumbles are valid attempts at five through nine, just poorly enunciated. Of course, we’re very excited about this, but attempts to get him on tape have proven difficult.
Personally, I’ve continued my render work over the summer. Partly I’m enjoying, and partly it’s just taking my mind off of my dad. Recently, I also bought an airbrush setup and some really good bodypaint – Hollywood effects quality stuff, so very good, very safe, and annoyingly expensive. I’ve always liked to see bodypainting, so I’m going to see if I can do it. I’m going to practice some on my legs, but if MAW’s skin can handle it, I’ll be pining away to paint her. “Ok, I’ll take out the trash, mop the floors, dust the ceiling fans, clean the toilets, and fold the laundry. Then will you let me paint you?” If any of you are interesting in being vandalized by me, let me know. I’m just hoping to get in enough practice before Orfunner (Labor Day). If various schedules (work and funerals) let me go there, I should get the chance to embarrass myself with strangers.
I had a good time playing pool one night last week. In California, my boss and coworkers usually go out for an evening of pool, and I usually suck big-time. I don’t mean “oops, you didn’t nudge the four ball hard enough” sucking, but “wow, you managed to miss nine balls and then scratch” sucking. Since we tend to play in teams of two (more conversation around the table that way), I feel bad about it. So, after the last time, I decided I’d get in a little “off-season” practice back home. This time, elements of the game finally clicked. While I’m still light-years from trick shots or a strong break, I can now usually hit the ball I wanted, and I understand when you want the cue ball to hit hard, and when you want it to hit softly. I used to think it was all just the angle – right? Now I know better. I also ran into a trio who were looking for a fourth to round out their table, and I managed to play two or three games with them fairly respectfully. They then invited me to a “divorce party” which kept me out until about 1am. But that’s another story.
A nice thing that happened recently is that MAW and I finally finished watching the Babylon 5 series DVD’s. In the original airings, she dropped out either late in season 4 or early season 5 – probably because of how much I was obsessing over it – and never saw the end. So seven years went by with me holding my tongue on the spoilers. Seven years of listening to her make an off-hand comment about something in the B5 universe and NOT saying, “Actually, it turns out that G’Kar…” or “No, what actually happened with Londo was…” Don't even get me started about Sheridan. Instead, I would just pause, take a deep breath, and tell her, “You should really see the rest of season 5.” Now we’re done, and I can finally relax. Of course, she still has to finish reading the Psi-Corps and Centauri trilogies before I’m completely off the hook, but I think that will go fairly quickly. Oh, and yes, we are both total nerds, thankyouverymuch.
I’m still working on that webcomic idea some, but I guess I’m still fine tuning my skills with the rendering tools before I try something that will require me to be able to grind them out. So, I’d say, “see you in the funny papers”, but not quite yet.
Family by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 10, 2005
NARAL Falsely Accuses Supreme Court Nominee Roberts
Pro-choice activists have started the smear campaign against Supreme Court Nominee Roberts. Their ad states:
Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women's health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.
(On screen: Footage of bombed clinic)
(Tex on screen: New Woman/All Women Health Clinic; January 28, 1998)
Emily Lyons: When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life.
Announcer: Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.
The only problem? The ad is false. See the factcheck.org story on it.
I also find much of this memo digging disingenous. When he was working for Reagan and G.W.H. Bush, he wasn't making rulings. He was making the argument to support the position his bosses told him to support. As a lawyer, he was making the case for his client. If we are to assume that all lawyers are ideological clones of clients they represent, then we must conclude that all defense lawyers are murderers, rapists, etc.
NARAL and others have stated that this was not a case that the government needed to get involved in, that it was some personal quest of Roberts', but that is also misleading. It was a civil suit over the interpretation of a federal law, and the federal government usually makes a "friend of the court" brief to state the government's position, i.e. "Those of us charged with enforcing that law think it means this."
(Disclaimer: I have not personally researched Roberts very much yet -- no time -- so while I have a generally favorable impression of him, it is of low intensity. I just find these NARAL tactics to be distasteful.)
Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
Behind the Scenes of your IM client
Here's a funny little render I did a couple of weeks back.
Think about this next time you ;) in your IM client.
Render by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
August 04, 2005
Handcuffs
This is a true story from my college years, though the names have been changed to protect the clueless. I cross-posted it to the Elevator Blog.
I got on at One, coming back from a late evening stroll through campus. Elevator traffic had died off, so I was able to snag one for just me. I punched the button, leaned against the cool metal wall, and shoved my hands into the loose pockets of my sweats. I was expecting a smooth, uninterrupted ride up to Eleven, but it stopped short at Three.
Three was the Virgin Vault, an all-girls floor where no men were allowed, so I was quite surprised to see two guys step in, the second followed closely by a cute brunette, almost as through linked at the wrist. “I don’t know about this, Steve,” she said.
I took a closer look at Steve and his hapless girl and realized that they really were linked at the wrist. Handcuffs. “Don’t worry, Jen, it’ll only take a few minutes,” Steve replied and nodded to his nameless friend who punched Ten.
Ah, the Men of Ten. Ten was an all-male floor notorious for low brow stunts and equally low GPA’s. Most of them were pledging one fraternity or another, so in addition to inter-house rivalries, they were always being dispatched on one mission of stupidity or another. I casually shifted my way into the corner of the elevator and waited for us to get going again.
Jen was holding up her wrist, taking a closer look at the cuffs. “You’re sure there’s no other way to get these open?”
“Just the key, but I’m pretty sure I know where it is.”
I recognized the handcuffs immediately. They weren’t police caliber. They weren’t even serious security cuffs. They were just toys, but still solid steel toys. The locks on that kind of thing were just a single-pin tumbler, really just a lever that needed to be moved to release the lock catch. Anything narrow and bent could open those: a hairpin, a paperclip, even a decent length fingernail.
How did I know so much about those handcuffs? I had a pair just like them. Why? Well, that’s my own damn business, but I had once learned an important lesson. You never want to be far from the key, so I’d long ago put one of the keys on my key ring. In my pocket, my fingers instinctively searched for it.
Of course, I could have offered up the key immediately, but that was against the elevator rules. Do not initiate contact. Even if others are talking to each other, you do not initiate contact. Eyes front. Do not speak unless spoken to. Anything else shatters the illusion that we’re comfortably riding along to our destination in our own privacy buffer zone. A single word, even eye contact, can instantly transforms us into a herd, packed body to body, trapped in a metal box. So, I just stood there watching Jen out of the corner of my eye, all the while idly fingering her salvation in my pocket.
“Five minutes,” Steve was saying. “Five minutes, tops. I’m sure I can find the key.”
“I still don’t like it,” Jen replied. “Doesn’t anyone else have a key?”
“Come on, Jen, it’s not like…” Steve paused and turned to me. “Hey, you, do you have a key to these handcuffs?”
I looked at them and made full eye contact – I’d been given explicit permission – Steve with his smug grin, Jen with her pleading eyes. “As a matter of fact, I do.” I pulled the key from my pocket, already grasped between thumb and forefinger, ready to go. I took one step, reached for Jen’s wrist, and promptly unlocked her side of the cuffs.
She looked up at the floor display and quickly jabbed Nine, bringing the elevator to as sudden a stop as it could manage. “See you later guys,” she told them, and as the door opened for her, she looked right at me. “Thank you.”
The ride of just one floor, from Nine to Ten, was objectively only thirteen seconds, but Steve’s glare made it seem much longer. “Yeah, thanks,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “thanks a lot.”
I shrugged. “Hey, you asked for the key.”
Nameless Friend prodded Steve towards the open door. “He’s right, Steve. You did ask.”
They exited with unintelligible grumbles from Steve, and I proceeded up to Eleven. A lot of those guys on Ten are Business or Pre-Law. I sometimes think Steve went on to be a lawyer and that I taught him a very valuable lesson that day. When you’re in front of the jury, never ask the witness a question that you don’t already know the answer to.
Narrative by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 03, 2005
Astronomy Picture of the Day
I believe I've mentioned Astromony Picture of the Day before, but in case you're not grabbing its RSS feed already, at least check out today's picture. It's especially cool.
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 02, 2005
A Different Cinderella Story
I don't normally just do jokes, but this one was too good not to pass on:
Cinderella wants to go to the ball, but her wicked stepmother won't let her. As Cinderella sits crying in the garden, her fairy godmother appears, and promises to provide Cinderella with everything she needs to go to the ball, but only on two conditions.
"First, you must wear a diaphragm."
Cinderella agrees. "What's the second condition?"
"You must be home by 2 a.m. Any later, and your diaphragm will turn into a pumpkin."
Cinderella agrees to be home by 2 a.m. The appointed hour comes and goes, and Cinderella doesn't show up. Finally, at 5 a.m., Cinderella shows up, looking love-struck and very satisfied.
"Where have you been?" demands the fairy godmother. "Your diaphragm was supposed to turn into a pumpkin three hours ago"
"I met a prince, Fairy Godmother. He took care of everything."
"I know of no prince with that kind of power. Tell me his name"
"I can't remember, exactly ...Peter Peter, something or other...."
Hat tip to the Keeper.
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 01, 2005
Remember: August is Anal Sex Month
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2)